Then There Were Three, Part 2 of 3
by LikeCrimsonBloodshed
Summary: The future Second Middleman, Danny Dixon, gets first introduced to the world of the Middleman.
1. Chapter 1 Eviction

Hope you guys have been enjoying the beginning of this new series of Middleman adventures! Please review and let me know what you think! Now on to Part 2!

**The street housing the sub-par apartment of Daniel Dixon which looks like it hasn't been cleaned in years, according to his Mother. **

**1:34 P.M.**

That was positively one of the weirdest things Danny had ever been through in his life.

At first, the main anchor of the station he worked at turned into a manic tentacle monster and tried to turn him into Cream of Danny. Then, apparently two F.B.I. agents showed up, flashed their badges and then proceeded to completely confuse him with their intentions. What WAS all that stuff about what he did or didn't see anyway? Danny knew what he saw, no matter what those two suits were going on about.

And as he walked back to his small apartment down the street from the station, he wondered if this day would possibly get any stranger. He climbed the stairs up to his floor and crossed down the hall to his door….which just happened to be padlocked with an eviction notice plastered on his door.

"What?"

He leaned in closer to make sure that what he was seeing was right. It was sure enough a notice of eviction for failure to pay rent, which made absolutely no sense. He never missed any month's rent. In fact he had just turned in this month's check last week. It made no sense at all.

Strangely enough, there was a flier stuck between the wall and the side of the door. Danny pulled the flier out and read it.

"The Jolly Fats Wehawkin Apartment Services, Inc.? The hell?"

He'd never even heard of it. It didn't sound like a legitimate apartment service at all. Why would an apartment service leave him a flier on the day he was getting evicted? On that note, why was he getting evicted in the first place?

"This doesn't make any sense! I gotta go talk to the landlord."

He started down the hall again, and then stopped in his tracks.

"You mean the landlord that I've never seen and is never around….yet strangely was around long enough to evict me…."

He had always put his checks through the slot on the door of the landlord's office. He had yet to meet them or even tell if it was a man or a woman.

He rubbed his face in exasperation.

"Great. You're talking to yourself again, Danny. That's always constructive."

He looked down at the flier again, and shrugged. What the hell did he have to lose? More likely than not the landlord wouldn't be there anyways. He looked at the address at the bottom of the flier and walked back down the hall.


	2. Chapter 2 Tests

**Outside Middleman HQ**

"**The Jolly Fats Wehawkin Apartment Services, Inc."**

**2:01 P.M.**

Danny walked into the building, casting a curious look left and right, taking in the room around him. For the most part, it looked like the lobby of a really old-fashioned hotel or boarding house, or whatever this place had once been. He let himself in and walked toward another door further down, which took him into another room. This was one was much darker, with no sunlight from the outside penetrating in.

There was just one desk in front of him, with a woman standing behind it. One who was a bit on the pudgy side, with wiry curly brown hair and thick-rimmed pink glasses. If there was any way to cram any more polka dots on her blue dress, Danny couldn't think of it.

She just stood there and fixed him with a bored yet somewhat expectant look. Danny didn't quite know what to say, so he cleared his throat and just came out with it.

"Um…is this….the….Jolly Fats Wehawkin Apartment Services?"

"What was your first clue?"

Her voice resounded with complete sarcasm and, again, boredom. It sort of completed the "strict librarian" look that was the only image Danny could place her in.

"Um…what?"

"Was it the sign on the outside? The posters in the lobby? Or was it the huge sign on my counter?"

She mad a sweeping gesture at the company sign on the counter she was standing behind. Danny rubbed the back of his neck, already embarrassed.

"Sorry, it's just been a REALLY rough day…"

"Does the counter say 'Sob Stories Anonymous'? I don't think so."

Danny opened his mouth, again trying to say something, but nothing good came out.

"What is this place exactly? What do you do here?"

"We're here to offer living services to those who find themselves displaced. Why else would you be here?"

The strict librarian pulled up a clipboard.

"Name please."

"Erm….Daniel Dixon."

She flipped up a page or two on the clipboard, but Danny swore he saw her head twitch once or twice, and that he heard a strange whirring sound coming from somewhere.

"Here you are, Danny-boy. We have a notice of eviction posted just this morning. Tough luck, squatter."

Danny held up a hand.

"Now hold on a minute, I shouldn't have been evicted."

The librarian looked back down at the page.

"Says here you failed to pay your rent."

"That's a lie. I never failed to pay."

This time she faced him, slowly cocking en eyebrow and grilling him with that derisive stare. Danny finally conceded.

"OK, fine, I was a bit slow on payments when I first started living there, but since I got my job I've always been regular on them. I swear!"

"You can swear to every deity from here to Timbuktu, squatter, but the fact is you're still homeless. Now are you here to take advantage of our many helpful services or not?"

Danny sighed, hanging his head and shaking it. This day just managed to get worse, he wasn't sure how it happened, but it did. What other choice did he have?

"Yes. I…I want to use your services."

Librarian set the clipboard down and then cracked her knuckles.

"Alright, before we can grant you that access, we need to run a few tests."

Danny looked up.

"Oh OK, you mean, like, background checks and stuff? I swear I don't have any felonies."

"Wouldn't be the first lie I've heard in my life there, squatter. Bottom line is you have to go through these tests before we can help. Capiche?"

Danny just blinked several times at her.

"Fine. Whatever."

Next thing he knew, Danny was typing away at possibly the first typewriter he had ever seen in his life while the Librarian held out the clipboard with a sheet of words he was supposed to get done.

But in her other hand was a strange small, round, metallic device. Looked like a stopwatch, except there was no clock on it. Just three glowing lights that glowed yellow, green, and red, and kept blinking on and off.

"I still don't see what my typing speed has to do with me finding an apartment."

"Shut your pie-hole and type, squatter."

And type he did.

Now he was arranging different-colored blocks into a certain order in a wooden holder. She had told him the right order to put them in, and he was trying to do it as fast as he could while she continued to clutch that little non-stopwatch, looking at it every few seconds or so.

Danny just hoped that there wouldn't be too many more tests.

A lie detector test? Seriously? Danny knew people had to know who their tenants were with regards to drugs and crimes and the like, but he had nothing to hide! And the questions were all really strange to him.

"Are you allergic to anything?" The librarian had asked him.

"Erm…no….hey do I have to be strapped to this chair? It's not like I'm going anywhere."

"Are you telling the truth?" He heard her ask behind him.

"Yes."

"Grass? Mildew? Jell-O?"

"Why would I be allergic to Jell-O?"

"Any gelatinous substance?"

"Not that I know of."

A treadmill? A treadmill? How was how far he could run in what amount of time indicative of his aptitude for having an apartment? Unless he was living on a racetrack, which he wasn't ever really crazy about, this was completely useless.

"Why….do I….have to…" He said between breaths.

"Less talking, more running there, bucko."

"What….IS…..this?"

"Just keep your eyes on the screen, squatter."

"Don't think I could close them even if I wanted to. And trust me, I want to!"

Once again he was strapped to a chair, with his head hooked up to a cacophony of metal wires. He also had a mask on his head that was currently prying his eyelids open as he was staring at one of the most horrible scenes he had ever seen.

"Can't we please watch something else?"

"Stare through the pain."

Danny forced his will to stay strong. But watching an endless loop of M. Night Shyamalan's _The Last Airbender_ was starting to tear away the last of his life preservation.

"Uhh…..an umbrella?"

He saw Librarian shake her head and pull up another white placard, and then he tried to guess what was on the other side of this one. Again, he thought this test to be completely and utterly useless, but he'd given up trying to argue with her.

"A cup?"

Another shake of the head and then another white placard. Danny stared at the white back hard, trying to see if he could see through to the other side. Seeing that he couldn't he blew out a frustrated stream of air and coughed up another answer.

"I dunno….an ice cream cone?"

Finally, at long last, the tests had ended, and Librarian just got done looking over some sheets on her clipboard before turning to Danny.

"Well that about wraps it up for you, squatter."

Danny had just about had it. He had endured an afternoon full of the most degrading activities he could think of, in addition to a day that had already thrown him for the biggest loop of his life. He couldn't take it anymore.

"You sure? That's it? You don't want me to pee in a cup? Turn my head and cough?"

"Watch that mouth of yours, squatter, or you'll find your kiester sore on the street corner. I was just about to congratulate you on your new residence….and job."

Danny's eyes went wide.

"Whoah whoah whoah whoah, job? What job? I already have a job. I came here for an apartment."

The Librarian looked up to her left.

"Daniel Dixon, meet your new landlord."


	3. Chapter 3 Revelation

"Y-you!"

That was all Danny could muster as he pointed up at the man Librarian had looked up at. He was standing on a balcony of sorts on the second floor looking down at him. It was the same F.B.I. guy who came to the station!

He smiled down from the balcony, his hands folded behind his back.

"Yes, Mr. Dixon, I believe we've met before. Lights?"

The darkness of the room dispelled, and Danny looked around him to see mahogany-wood walls and a staircase which the man was standing on top of. He was already walking down the steps.

"I'm the Middleman. You've already met Ida."

Danny squinted ahead at him.

"The Middle…what? Wait, wasn't your name Matt?"

"Mark…actually…but that was a fake. As was the name of my associate whom you've met as well, Wendy Watson."

Danny turned to see the girl who was with him that morning as well. She had her arms crossed and an expectant look on her face as well.

"Did you like the movie? Ida knows all the best blockbusters."

"Made you squirm well enough, didn't I, missy?"

"Wait, wait, hold on!"

Danny held his arms out and shut his eyes tight for a minute before turning on Matt or Mark or the Middlewhatever that he called himself.

"You guys aren't with the F.B.I. at all, are you? Then what are you?"

The Middleman cast a look behind Danny at Wendy once, and then turned back down to him.

"I guess you could call us independent contractors. We solve exotic problems."

Danny just stared at him.

"What do you mean by exotic? Are we talking, like, foreign goods? Are you guys criminals?"

"Psh. If we were we'd probably be making more."

"Dubbie."

The Middleman cast another dubious look behind him, and Danny looked back in time to see Wendy hold her hands up in surrender and gesture for him to go on.

"No, Mr. Dixon. We're not criminals. Far from it, actually. Do you read comic books?"

Danny looked nervously left to right, then opened his mouth but the Middleman beat him to it.

"I'm sorry, that was an ill-placed question. I already know you do. I saw them when we moved your apartment. You have quite the impressive collection there, Mr. Dixon, especially your Spider-Man shelf."

He then smiled a little sheepishly and looked down for a minute.

"I hope you don't mind if I sifted through a few of those."

"Wait, you guys were in my apartment? How? Wha-…"

Danny's eyes went the size of dinner plates. Anger boiling up inside of him, he pointed an accusing finger at the Middleman.

"Were you guys the ones who got me evicted?"

"Yyyeeeaaaaah. Sorry about that."

Danny wheeled on Wendy as she spoke.

"It was the only way we could think of to get you down here. And to protect you."

"Protect me? You guys cost me my apartment! The hell kind of protection is this?"

He felt a calming hand on his shoulder and he turned around to find the Middleman's calming smile.

"Mr. Dixon, we do apologize, but Wendy's right. We had to get you evicted so that you would follow the flier here."

He gestured with his arms all around him.

"To headquarters."

Danny looked around him.

"The headquarters of what?"

"Let's go back to the comic books, Danny. You know how in comic books there's all kinds of mad scientists and aliens and androids and monsters and all of them want to either destroy or take over the world?"

Danny looked back at Wendy, then at apparently Ida, and back at the Middleman. Were they really discussing comic books when the question of his apartment still hadn't been answered?

"Um…yeah."

"Well, Mr. Dixon, it really does work like that. I would like to personally welcome you to Middleman HQ. Now, if you wouldn't mind following us, we can begin the tour."

With that, the Middleman, Wendy, and Ida all turned and made their way down a hall right next to the staircase. Danny hesitated at first, but followed after them. He was going to get to the bottom of the situation with his apartment if it killed him.

**Aaaaaaaaand cliffhanger ending, guys! So my man Danny Dixon meets up with the Middleman and crew. For what reason? All will be revealed in the final part of my first chapter in a new saga of Middleman adventures, because as a fan I believe this show was cancelled way too early. We fans need more closure. Please read and review and let me know what guys think! Part 3 coming up soon.**


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